Poems From God

Poetry and Theology with some opinion thrown in

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Do Cats go to heaven

This question will not be answered until we get to Heaven, to be greeted by all who love us, including our dogs and cats. I do draw the line at rats, although i am prepared to listen to anyone who can make a special pleading or show why they should not be excluded. Since none of us can even begin to comprehend what Heaven will be like, my ignorance is no excuse to tell God, who He can't include.

This applies to people too. We will be surprised both by who we see, and who we don't see. I suspect that the most surprising thing when we get to Heaven will be the sheer joy of the place, joy beyond our comprehending. Although football fans who have rooted for a losing team for 20 years, when they finally win the Conference championship may have a slight edge on the rest of us.

Another poem about why we don't know joy.

Why You Don’t Have Joy

I offer you joy.
You want stuff.
You covet what isn’t yours.
Your greed buries My joy.
Your lust and jealousy
keep you from My joy.
Let Me strip all your stuff
that keeps you from My joy.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Finding peace in the midst of suffering

An encounter with a pastor's daughter.

Sitting down to eat a hot dog, I didn't expect a divine appointment. I asked a 20 something woman, “Was this seat taken?” What ensued was a serious discussion about church, pastor's kids, divorce, unwed mothers, pain, pastors, forgiveness, being a real church family, and a very good hot dog.

As we talked, she reveled a horrifying story. Her married sister, is being threatened and stalked by her husband, who just served her with divorce papers. This sister has three close non-Christian friends. They say, “one thing they see in her is peace.” We saw how her sister's peace was an example of real peace available to Christians. Not peace in absence of pain, but peace in midst of pain. We pondered if pain is God's plan, or consequence of sin, and agreed it seemed a mixture of both. I told her how suffering I've gone through has refined. How God asked me. “What will you do when I allow it to rain.” Yet sin has consequences.

Then her story got even more interesting. It also included her. A reason her sister's looming divorce wasn't causing problems in their father's church, was the sister I spoke to, got pregnant when only 18. This horrified many in the church, who blamed her father for not keeping her from getting pregnant. As though being a pastor is a substitute for abstinence or contraception. She said, “I felt a need to rebel.” She estimated 250 people left the church over the issue. She thought the church was better for it. The church now was more of a family, where anything could be discussed, not a place people pretended to be nice. We agreed how dangerous it was, when people pretend they are nice.

I said, as a Calvinist, I was fully aware of the depravity of man, particularly men. How hard it was to forgive pastors. This story, an example how people look for perfect pastors. They will never find them.

She dismissed getting married. She didn't want to make another mistake, to hide the first one. It is interesting how her obvious “sin”, led to a more open church, no longer pretending perfection.

We seem to focus on visible sin. A guy gets away with it, (except for paternity suits). He can sit in church looking “innocent”, while she sits, exposed to all. Baby bulge impossible to ignore. We focus on visible sin, forgetting sins of omission are twice as bad. Easy to gossip about sin, indifferent to courage to keep a child, and not take the easy road of killing it to hide her sin. We all sin, it's just some are more visible.

Driving home, I thought how her getting pregnant, could be a consequence of her innocence. Not aware how passion's power hobbles women, she is tempted, then overwhelmed by feelings, her control center shut down. How can you know what it is like until you do it? It only takes one time to get pregnant. A lesson on sin's danger. So easy to be trapped by temptation.

Truth found with a hot dog. Another divine appointment,
and:
A question from Jesus
Why do you pretend to be perfect?
Refuse to admit that you sin.
Who do you seek to fool?

Friday, August 26, 2011

To Be a Disciple

Jesus said “Follow Me.” to those He chose and Chooses. Follow Jesus. What does it mean? Simple answer? Just do what Jesus would do. The WWJD thing. Life as, ”Imitation of Christ”. Learn as much about Jesus as possible, and obey his teachings. The problem: This simple answer is wrong. This is why.

First, being a disciple doesn't flow from what you do, but from being intimate with Jesus. To walk with Him. Be filled With Him. When and IF you take communion, think...If I take Jesus within me, not as memorial for an amazing thing that happened around 1,981 years ago, but as a paradoxical blessing of power, Right Now, if it doesn't change me, calls into question if I truly took Him in.

It seems a paradox, if you don't believe you took him in, you don't. If you believe you took Him IN, then you do. So somehow, in the same way that an observer seems to effect what happens to electrons and slits or Schrodinger’s cat in quantum mechanics experiments, do we influence what happens in the mass? (as Catholics are fond of calling it).

I prefer to call it communion, because if lowly unworthy me somehow takes God within me, and this somehow transforms me, communion seems as close as we can to describe this amazing concept. I commune with God. Not in a master-servant thing that seems like getting scrapings from the table. Instead, this is the story of the Prodigal.

Son comes back. Father kills the fatted calf. I come to communion. I offer myself. Nothing more, nothing less. My best just filthy rags. Emptied, I can be filled. As Jesus promised, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, “Will Be Filled.” This is the amazing gift of the table. God invites me, an inconsequential being on the third planet from a mid-sized star, in a backwater galaxy, far from the center of said galaxy, TO BE FILLED. God threw a party for me. He killed the fatted calf for me. All I do is show up.

This is why following is misleading. You don't have to chase God. Seek to know “mysteries”. Study for 40 years to learn “All he commands.” All you do is show up. Offer to be emptied to be filled.

Ah, here is one major problem. We know we must surrender, but get it slightly wrong. We think it's about what we give up. We try to earn a gift. “Lord, look what I gave up for you.” As though that was of slightest importance. Remember pearl beyond price, or treasure in the field.

Or we tell God. “Look what I don't do.” I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't dance. I don't go to parties. I don't swear. I don't.”..The “I don't” list is far too long to be contained in any book short of a Steven King opus, another don't... “I don't read Steven King.”

God is like the father, he doesn't care what you gave up, anymore than the father cares his son gave up feeding pigs. His son is present. Back from the dead. God offers to throw the most wonderful party for US, the amazing party is communion. Come celebrate. Come join the party. Be filled.

This is being a disciple. Just show up, to be filled. Hunger for righteousness. A disciple of Jesus, ready to embark with Him on a journey of intimacy. Learn to hear his voice. Learn to be still and listen, then learn to hear Him in the midst of chaos.

This journey is a lifetime commitment. An infinite trail of sanctification, suffering, refining and divine appointments. Like a special forces soldier dropped deep into enemy territory, totally alert to all around. Mindful. Seeking to join God in His plan, to Be a disciple of Jesus.

For those committed to communion as memorial service, ask yourself if the remembering might be to remember that you have taken Jesus within you. This is the memory to remember. Not just the amazing event of nearly 2K years ago, but that Jesus is present in you now.

Revelation 3:19 &20 points to Jesus telling us that He stands at the door and knocks. If we let Him in, He will sup with us. This is at the heart of discipleship. We take God within. We are His. We sup with him, or better still, we have a feast of joy with Him.

Three words sum up a journey with Jesus. Three words, all at the same time, in a triple paradox: Fearless, Joyful, Obedience. Simple words to meditate on and to live in a life of intimate discipleship. So simple. So hard. Each one an infinity. Together a trinity of infinity. So join with me and Jesus on a journey into infinity. The journey of joy that is true discipleship.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Another Paradox: Cynical Innocent

Here is another mind hurting paradox. Learn to be cynical innocent. Fully aware of how evil, untrustworthy, selfish and dangerous all others in the world are. Another way of putting it: agree with Calvin we all are depraved with no hope.

At the same time, holding that dismal picture of humanity firmly in your head, be total trusting innocent. Fully able to forgive, able to reach out knowing you will get your hand scratched, bit, clawed and shredded. Not 50/50, but 100/100.

Full cynic. That's easy for me. Betrayed by brother who killed my father. Betrayed by God. Betrayed by unfaithful denomination, determined to commit abominations. Betrayed by banks. Betrayed by politicians,(no surprise). Mindful of evil. Yet in the midst of all this horror, to somehow be innocent. Not just a little, but to trust in full innocence, knowing i will be hurt.

My response to God on this one is: This is impossible. Flat out impossible. You want me to do what? Easy to trust, if i just pretend everything is FINE. Hard to trust, if i admit the true horrors that lie beneath the placid surface. True trust isn't easy.

Yet this is at the heart of being a disciple of Jesus. To somehow hang crucified in the midst of this painful paradox. Innocence and cynicism. Both together at the same time. I've no poem to share on this strange blessing. I expect one is coming when God has stretched my mind beyond its safe design limit. To hear His voice explaining the impossible, in a simple paradoxical answer.

About Me

As a Presbyterian elder (PCUSA) married to a Catholic, my perspective starts from a background grounded in scripture. It values intellectual understanding. Into that deep watering of the Word, has come hearing God. This Blog, is focused on both hearing God, & "deep" theological studies as we seek to understand the paradoxes of truth. Each path is infinite; never will I fully understand theology, or clearly hear God & be fully intimate with the infinite. Both journeys are important. Like walking a log, you can fall off either side.
Part of this blessed journey, is going to both Catholic & Presbyterian churches, (when we married, we agreed to both go to both churches). A liturgical Catholic church, often is a place I clearly hear God, since it gives space to listen. Some services can lack space to, "be still and know I am God". Although, one of my strangest encounters with God was at communion in a Presbytery meeting. A communion plate passed. I heard: "Turn aside and follow Me. See Me in the homeless man..." I tried to write down what I heard, & take communion. God has a sense of humor. Join me hearing poems from God. I just take dictation. Be still and listen.